pongee

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. A soft thin cloth woven from Chinese or Indian raw silk or an imitation thereof.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A soft unbleached silk, from China or India, from silkworms that feed on oak leaves

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A fabric of undyed silk from India and China.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. A soft, unbleached washing silk resembling the tasar silk of India, woven in China, chiefly in the province of Shantung, from cocoons of a wild silkworm (Attacus pernyi) which feeds on a scrub-oak. The finer kinds bleached, dyed or figured after importation, are known in the trade as China silks.

Examples

Miss Drexel, seized by inspiration or desperation, with a quick movement stripped off her short, corduroy tramping-skirt, and, looking very lithe and boyish in slender-cut pongee bloomers, ran along the sand and dropped the skirt for a foothold for the slowly revolving wheels.

At one point Miss Drexel "seized by inspiration or desperation, with a quick movement stripped off her short, corduroy tramping-skirt, and, looking very lithe and boyish in slender-cut pongee bloomers," throws the skirt under the wheels to give the machine's wheels purchase.

The willow, almond and the whole lot of trees, on the upper side, were, it is true, without blossom and leaves; but pongee and damask silks, paper and lustring had been employed, together with rice-paper, to make flowers of, which had been affixed on the branches.

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Comments

"Mrs. Oliphant was very glad to see them. She wore a suit made out of pongee, a hat with a green veil, an amethyst necklace, a lapis lazuli necklace, and a silver one with her eyeglasses on it."The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright, pp 165-166 of the 2008 paperback edition